non-SCSI disks on a SCSI disk interface (was Re: Space, the next frontier)

From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis_at_mcmanis.com>
Date: Wed May 26 17:18:07 1999

At 02:51 PM 5/26/99 -0700, Frank wrote:
>Sun did this too. [scsi to MFM] ...
>I think I remember reading somewhere that this was done because the
>SCSI-to-whatever interface had the intelligence for bad-block
>remapping. But I wouldn't be surprised to find that the cost of the
>drives had something to do with it;

Cost has more to do with it than bad blocks, the 4.1BSD disk driver knew
how to remap bad blocks but with Adaptec and Emulex solutions you could put
_two_ cheap drives behind a SCSI interface (logical unit 0 and 1) and when
you did that the costs were significantly less for the scsi+ESDI solution.
Of course Sun was a huge proponent of IPI, claiming it would wipe SCSI off
the planet.

--Chuck
Received on Wed May 26 1999 - 17:18:07 BST